Schwab's Charley AI assistant rolls out starting October

Schwab's launch of Charley did not come out of nowhere. Ruegg said the firm has been steadily expanding how it uses AI to make investing more accessible, and that Charley is the next step in that evolution. Ahead of the phased client rollout, thousands of employees helped test and refine it, which the firm says strengthened its reliability, accuracy and ease of use while revealing how people naturally interact with a conversational experience.

The design choices reflect findings from Schwab's own research. In a recent survey of retail investors, 65% said AI can either help execute routine tasks or play a meaningful role in investing when paired with human expertise. Clients were said to be most comfortable using AI to answer questions, find account information, and handle routine updates, while preferring human involvement for more meaningful decisions and actions. That is why Charley can take certain eligible actions but requires confirmation before making a change.

On accuracy and privacy, Ruegg said Charley combines large language models with Schwab's data, expertise, security and safeguards, and is evaluated using testing, safety guardrails and human oversight. It provides links to Schwab resources so clients can review source information. Ruegg said Schwab has taken steps to ensure client data is not used to train Charley or the underlying AI models, and that Charley operates within Schwab's authenticated digital environment, accessing only what is needed to respond. She said the phased rollout is intended to make Charley increasingly useful and relevant to each client over time.